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Emotion can cause chickens to get red in the face

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2024-04-23 22:00:09

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Studying emotion in animals is a complex research field, little explored up to now in birds, although reddening of the skin had already been observed in previous work on the blue-and-yellow macaw. An INRAE research team focused on domestic fowl, in particular the popular Sussex laying hen, to determine if a similar phenomenon existed in chickens.

A total of six three-to-four-month-old Sussex hens were observed and filmed in a 363 m2 grove located in the Loire Valley, France, over a period of three weeks and in a variety of situations ranging from distribution of very appetizing feed to capture.

Through some very detailed work on two other breeds of chicken, the team selected 18,000 photos for use in a computer program they developed to detect chicken profiles and automatically extract them. Imagery software then made it possible to measure the levels of redness of the hens' facial skin in those photos.